Lieberman Seeks Greater Reward For Terrorists Who Defect To U.s.

February 05, 1992|By GINA BRISGONE; Courant Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — A Palestinian who refused to carry out a bomb attack for an Iraqi-sponsored terrorist network and helped the U.S. government convict one of the world's most sought-after terrorists deserves better treatment than he has received from the government, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, D-Conn., said Tuesday.

Lieberman pledged to push for legislation changing the way terrorist defectors are treated, after Adnan Awad testified before a Senate panel. Awad, a 49-year-old Palestinian businessman, detailed the frustration he has experienced since U.S. officials persuaded him to defect to the United States in 1984.

Awad, placed under the federal witness protection program administered by the U.S. Marshals' Service, could get no credit history that would help him start a business, nor could he get a passport to travel abroad.

"I told them many times, I didn't exist in this country," said Awad, who testified under heavy security Tuesday.

Lieberman, who presided over the hearing of the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, said it is essential to make life easier for those such as Awad if the United States hopes to win its fight against international terrorism. The group to which Awad belonged in Iraq aimed its attacks at Israelis and Americans.

"We really owe it to these people," said Lieberman, who estimated that about 10 people under the federal witness protection program are defectors from terrorist organizations. He said the government should ensure that "If you cooperate, you have a good life to look forward to." For Awad, "that hasn't been the case yet," Lieberman said.

Awad said he left the witness protection program in 1986, preferring to take his chances. Yet he still provided the government crucial information, such as the blueprints for the bunker of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein during the Persian Gulf war. "I still feel in this country I am a hostage for eight years," said Awad, whose voice became ragged with emotion as he testified. He said he was promised but never received a passport, could not get family brought to the United States and could not get residency status. Under the federal witness protection program, he was moved

from city to city and his identity was changed many times, he said.

"I need myself. I have 100 names," Awad said. "People look at me like I am a liar ... They look at me like I deal in drugs or am bad. Nobody trust me."

Lieberman called Awad a hero because of his role in helping the government identify high-tech suitcase bombs that were undetectable during the 1980s, and because he was the chief witness against Mohammed Rashid, a member of the Iraqi-based terrorist network. Last month, Rashid was convicted in Greece of masterminding the bombing of a Pan Am plane over Hawaii that killed a child and wounded 26 people in August 1982.

Awad was sent by the organization to bomb a Jewish-owned hotel in Geneva that same year. He said he was pressured with threats against his business to plant a suitcase bomb. Instead, he went to the U.S. Embassy in Bern, Switzerland, to tell them about the bomb and seek asylum. He also identified a technology used in bombing a French plane over Chad in 1989 in which a U.S. ambasador and 170 passengers were killed.